complementary antonym

English

Noun

complementary antonym (plural complementary antonyms)

1. (semantics) A term whose meaning is the complement of another term, in an either-or fashion, such as mortal in relation to immortal.
2. (linguistics, philosophy, semantics) One of a pair of words wherein affirmative use of one entails the negative of the other with no gradability.
   • 2010, M. Lynne Murphy, Lexical Meaning‎^[1], page 120:

     Complementary (also called contradictory) antonyms are those for which the assertion of one entails the negation of the other and vice versa, as in (17).
     a. That integer is even. → That integer is not odd.
     b. That integer is not odd. → That integer is even.

Synonyms

• binary antonym
• contradictory antonym

Translations

complementing term

• Finnish: komplementaarinen vastakohta

See also

• complementarity
• gradable antonym
• converse antonym
• biconditional